FERRITE CORES

Perhaps the BEST investment you can make for your ham radio shack ... and your operation.

At WB4BYR, we use FERRITE CORES all over the freak'n place!

[ ] Power Cords to things like Computers, Scopes, Printers, Faxes, Copiers, Scanners, even Receivers, Transceivers and Power Supplies

You think I'm kidding! I have at least one of everything that you just read about in the ham shack. Your shack may not double as a part time home office, but I'll bet you have a lot of stuff that you plug into an outlet that should have a ferrite core on it!

There's more to this story, and I think it's worth reading about. I cover it at the end of this column. Read on! [ ] Phone Lines to things like Phones, of course, Modems, Phone Patches, Faxes, and those Multi-function machines that you often find in small offices.

I've got everything but the phone patch in my shack. But I've got two phones, and all the rest. Don't think you have a modem. If you have a computer, like most of us do anymore, you most likely have a modem. Do you want RF going into that modem? I don't think so!

[ ] All sorts of AC Adapters for things like Phones, Computers, Printers, Faxes, Copiers, and Other Electronics.

You'd be surprised at the number of AC Adapters you find in the average ham shack these days. I also have several charger devices, and they all deserve protection, too!

[ ] Did I forget to mention Communications Cables for Printers, Multi-Purpose, Network Cables, etc.

[ ] Stereo and Audio equipment - speaker cables and AC cords!!!! You've got a big inventment in the family's home entertain- ment center nearby. Why not protect it from heavy RFI as well!

[ ] Use on Coaxial Cables right below the antenna to minimize cable shield feedback and subsequent radiation

[ ] Use in Mobile installations � to min- imize RFI on the DC power system, on the auto�s computer, tape and CD players, etc

[ ] Carry extras along during portable operations, field days, etc. There�s no worse place to need what you don�t have!

NOW HEAR THIS!
I only just recently put ferrite cores on the AC cords leading to my transceivers, oscilloscope and antique Hallicrafters SX-122 receiver. I've reasoned, I suppose, that those devices were designed to work in a ham shack environment and don't need any additional help or protection.

Apparently, that is NOT the case. Although I've not seen any difference in the way the scope works, for example, I immediately noticed that signal strength for received stations is up two (that's 2!) S units! No, I don't know why that is. But I believe that noise entering the transceiver thru the AC power line is activating the AGC and suppressing signals coming in thru the antenna.

Or should I say, the intended antenna! That's because every bit of wiring in your house (or other shack location) acts as an antenna, too. Actually, it acts as several antennas! Consider this. How does an ant- enna manufacturer manage to have an antenna with no moving parts automatically switch from one band to another? It's because the resonant element(s) at the band you are using has very low impedance, while the impedance of the non-resonant elements is so high that they are nullified. When you switch bands, another set of ele- ments becomes resonance or near so.

But your house wiring has many resonance levels due to the varying lengths of wire running from the panel. And some branches have other branches running off from them. So you end up with antennas that are feeding signals, albeit weak ones in many cases, into your transceiver or receiver's power supply. Now, it's in your electronics, and it gets amplified at intermediate stages as well as at the end game. Once it gets past the tuning stages, there is little to atten- uage it further. It simply adds, to some degre to the hash that your receiver has to deal with.

My theory is that the ferrite core I put on my transceiver's AC cable has strongly attenuated all those HF signals picked up by the many resonant elements of my house wiring ... and let the AGC kick back a bit. The end result is, that with the gain allowed to ramp up due to less noise, the S-meter reading rises ... at the same time that signal quality has been improved, too!

If you have a different theory, I'd like to hear it. And if you don't mind, perhaps some of our "readers" would like to hear your theory, too!

We sell T20 and M43 ferrite cores for $2.00 each! That's a small price to pay for a whole lot of protection! Want some. Give us a call! We'll fix you up. Minimum, 10 cores per order, plus shipping and handling.